


All you have is your fire // And the place you need to reach

by JoCarthage



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Ficlet, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jesse dies off screen, M/M, as he deserves to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 22:03:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21168590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage
Summary: Alex couldn't bear to look at the flag in his lap; couldn't bear to touch it. Taps was playing and all he could think of was -- did Michael put his father in that box?





	All you have is your fire // And the place you need to reach

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Hozier's "Arsonist's Lullabye" https://genius.com/Hozier-arsonists-lullabye-lyrics

Alex couldn't bear to look at the flag in his lap; couldn't bear to touch it. Taps was playing and all he could think of was -- did Michael put his father in that box?

\--

Alex had thought about it a hundred, a thousand times. Had put himself to bed thinking about it in a dozen countries. A embolism in the brainstem. A sliver of bone in the back of his eye. A -- a little _twist_ someplace untraceable inside.

Michael had no idea he knew, no idea how shit Alex's Dad was at op-sec. He'd known since Michael came to school and his Dad started to debrief him nightly on their playground encounters. He'd known and just as Michael had never said anything about his kisses in the museum, he'd never said anything about -- where Michael's true home was. And what his people's powers could do to the average human lifespan.

But here he was, 9 years into his planned 20 in the Air Force. The thing was, he'd planned his life with Michael's secret in mind: Michael would outlive them all. Him and the others, his secret siblings. The thing was, Alex knew he had time. He knew Michael had time. They would have time, together. They just had to outlast his father.

Well.

\--

Michael was not at the funeral.

Of course.

Max was.

It was something of a relief, knowing someone who'd touched Michael this week, if only to collar him on his way into the drunk tank, was here. Maybe some molecules of the nape of Michael's neck transferred when Max shook his hand after the service, eyes a bit more empathetic than Alex had remembered him being capable of. Maybe Valenti had kept files on him too.

\--

He had a week of family shit to cover -- meeting with a lawyer, babysitting his brother's kids as they took care of the bank boxes -- 

> _Hunter: hey, Alex, any idea why there was a bloodstained hammer in the safety deposit box with your name on it?_
> 
> _Alex: No idea, Hunter. Throw it right away. _
> 
> _Hunter: Fucking weird, man. _
> 
> _Alex: Sounds like Dad._

But the entire time, he was just -- breathing the same air as Michael. Breathing the same dry, hot, sage-dusted air. Wrapping up Project Shepherd was -- a few misdirected memos. A few haunting trips to Caulfield, finding care homes for the survivors. Mourning, mourning, mourning.

He would tell Michael about his mother.

Just the 100th secret he had to share.

Maybe Michael would forgive him.

_They had time._

\--

After a week his brothers were out of bereavement leave and Alex was still on medical leave -- getting his leg blown off a week before his father died of an embolism sure was a coincidence.

He'd -- he'd _dreamed_ of it, really. Michael coming to the door in the middle of family dinner, Alex inviting him in, sitting him down in front of his brothers, God and everyone, the house still stinking of his father's cologne and no one to stop them. Never again. All week, he'd half-listened for the half-knock on his window, on his door, but it didn't come.

He drove straight from the Albuquerque airport to Michael's trailer. Michael was out on a job but Alex had made this part of his plan into a mantra, the stretch in his calf as he reached for the spare key, the crunching creak of the door that never seemed to settle correctly on its hinges, the desert-dusty smell of the bed. The technicolored glass was new, but hey; he'd once found an entire collection of every edition of _Analogue Magazine_ from 1948 - 1962 tucked in a box under Michael's bed during one of this in-between-deployment stays. Nerdy alien was the man's aesthetic, and no amount of bronco taming, cattle-roping rodeo king gear would change it.

Alex spread-out on the bed and drifted, the smell of Michael surrounding him, loosening the tension that had been riding heavy on his shoulders since he'd gotten the call that started: "Captain Manes, it's about your father."

He heard the truck pull up, eyes easing open in the afternoon sunlight. Heard Michael pause, maybe seeing his Range Rover parked in easy plain sight of the road. The soft stomp of his boots on the pounded-down dirt outside of the trailer. The even softer tread on the ringing metal of the steps.

Alex hated the caution in that step, but then, Michael had no idea what he would find in here. He'd come here sobbing and non-verbal and laughing and free and broken and itching to break something to prove he wasn't. He'd taught Michael that caution, leave after leave, deployment after deployment. Luckily enough for him, they would have centuries together to fix it. If things went according to plan.

The door slipped open, Michael using his powers to keep it quiet. Alex caught the sway of him through his nearly-closed lashes.

And _there_, there it was. The soft sound of a heart snapping back together, torn open before and just like that, _whole_. Shirt on the ground, followed by boots and that heavy, prize-winner buckle smacking the aged linoleum. A word that was more a breath than syllables: _Alex_.

He met him as he crashed down on the bed, arms opening, legs wrapping around his hips as Michael buried his face in Alex's bare shoulder, great sobbing gasps echoing against the thin metal of the small space. Kneeling above him, body still held those gutting inches away.

_"_Alex--" He gasped. Then his whole body tensed: "Alex, how long?"

Alex -- he let his body tell the story, tell the best part first: "I'm getting out next month. Medical discharge --"

Michael's face flinched, his entire body collapsing against Alex's, like he hadn't even noticed the cold of the prosthetic against the back of his thigh. He was shuddering, body working every inch of stress, of fear out against the softest surface Alex could make himself.

"I _felt_ it," Michael whispered and Alex whimpered with him; he _knew_ and he knew Michael didn't know he knew, and he just -- he wanted these bare, untouched moments to let his body tell Michael's body -- he was safe. He was _here_. There would be world enough and time for Michael to feel betrayed by his unspoken knowledge, to be shocked about things Alex knew about him that he didn't even know himself.

_"_I'm never leaving again," Alex whispered into his dusty curls, "As long as you'll have me."

Michael pulled back, the first smile Alex had seen on his face in years nearly blinding. "Forever then."

Alex grinned, at the impossibility of it, and how much closer Michael was to the truth he thought he would be: "Forever, love."

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little ficlet I was doodling around with. I just liked the idea of Michael and Alex having an extended lifetime together, and Alex making plans around it. Also, I like the idea of Jesse Manes being dead.


End file.
